


Dead & Not Dead & Somewhere in Between

by GlitterFairy_21225



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Zach Dempsey/Alex Standall, Suicide Attempt, Tags Are Hard, The Author Regrets Everything, seriously no one ever request anything from ever again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-14 02:08:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21007958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitterFairy_21225/pseuds/GlitterFairy_21225
Summary: This was requested to me.How Alex’s friends reacted to his suicide attempt post-season one.





	Dead & Not Dead & Somewhere in Between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sunkist](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Sunkist).

> Look at me! Writing a post season one fic post season three.
> 
> Seriously, no one ever request anything from me ever again.

Jess didn't visit Alex in the hospital. After confessing to her parents, and honestly to herself, she mostly stays inside, too scared of the outside world as she came to terms with what had happened to her.

When she first heard the news, Jess felt the ground rip out from under her feet. Alex was one of the few people left who she always knew would be on her side, and now he was gone too. Jess didn't have hope that he would survive, and no one tried to tell her he would. She knew now that the world was a cruel place, and hope only made the final result hurt more.

If you believe a boy who loved you was going to live, it would only make his death more brutal. If you believe the boy you loved would always, always protect you, it will just make the pain he lets you suffer even worse. If you believe someone you barely knew wouldn't hurt you, (Because who would do that? What sense does it make to do something like that to someone else? How could anyone think that was okay?), then you're in for a world of disappointment.

So Jess cries for Alex the way she cries for Hannah. Full-on grief. Two dead best friends. It wasn't fair. They were her friends, and they left her after she was raped.

Looking back on it, it made sense. Alex was losing it, like she was losing it. The Alex she knew wouldn't pick a fight with Montgomery De la Cruz over some car thing. The Alex she knew wouldn't didn't disappear for thirty minutes at a time before coming back looking completely wrecked. The Alex she knew smiled, and Jess actually liked being around him.

Even if she didn't love him as more than a friend, she loved him. They were connected, both living, breathing casualties of Liberty High.

So she stays away until Zach Dempsey calls her and tells her that Alex would likely make a full recovery. Even then she doesn't visit, but she calls him, and he's understanding.

Yeah, they actually have a lot they understand about each other.

XXX

Clay tried to keep his distance when Alex was in the hospital. It sounds awful, but after everything with Hannah and her tapes, he wanted to distance himself. He had Skye, and Skye had her own issues that Clay needed to deal with. Plus, Alex survived and he'd probably get help. He tried not to think of Hannah. Of what would have happened if she lived through her attempt.

Besides, Clay barely knew him, and yet.... there was that car incident. The one where he kept speeding up despite his buddies telling him to stop. At the time he seemed like he was in a trance, and then his dad showed up and it was like nothing happened. Everyone just pretended nothing happened.

Just like everyone pretended they didn't do something horrible to Hannah Baker and then ignored her. Clay was probably more pissed off than anyone else about that rule against talking about suicide at Liberty. It was just more ignoring. Ignoring Hannah, ignoring Alex, ignoring anyone else who wants to kill themselves in a bathroom.

Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.

Clay kept away from Alex in the hospital. There was nothing he could do for him there. In the meantime, there was Skye, and she needed his help, so he was there for her, and when Alex and Jessica are ready to come back to school, he'd be their friend as well.

XXX

Justin didn't hear for months after it happened. It was in a low quality library, and he wanted to use a computer, just to see if there was any news about the Baker trial or if Bryce was convicted or anything. Apparently, trials take longer than that, but that didn't matter because then he was reading about the copycat suicide that put a dent in the whole thing.

It hurt. He cared about the other boy. Okay, yeah, he stole his friend's girlfriend, then didn't take good enough care of her, but he liked Alex.

He'd be lying if he said some of the crap Standall's done recently hadn't freaked him out, it was like the guy was an angsty emo who liked bleach half the time, and an overly violent psycho the other half. It scared him but he never made Alex talk to him about it. They were dudes. Dudes don't get into all that feeling bullshit.

He couldn't get his Mom to get away from Seth, he barely even tried to save his girlfriend from Bryce before giving up, and he didn't even notice his friend was ready to put a bullet in his brain.

A drug dealer won't stop no matter how bad he's begging him too, and Justin Foley could not protect a damn person.

XXX

Tyler knew he and Alex weren't actually "friends" per say, but he couldn't deny a strange fascination with the other person. He was... kind, Tyler supposed. Kind to Tyler at least.

He visited Alex in the hospital. No one else did, so no one else told him to fuck off. Sure Standall's devastated parents gave him the stink eye, but he was used to being judged for his existence by that point.

In a weird way, he became friends with Alex's parents before he was friends with Alex. At first they were pretty uneasy with him cause of the tapes, but the fact was Tyler was in their son's waiting room when no one else was.

Tyler could understand why Alex did the kind of things he did. Tyler would do anything for friends, any friend. But to be friends with the jocks, to have people envy him and wish that they could have things that Tyler had- It was a fever dream and Alex got a chance to live it and he took it. Tyler wasn't in the position to blame him for that.

But jocks were bullies, and they turn other, better people into bullies too. Tyler knew that, and if he were being honest, he probably would have happily complied to becoming one of the monster who tortured him for so long if it meant he could escape the pain of high school.

Popularity was like a siren singing to a sailor, coercing people who just want to get their destination to their cruel and brutal deaths. It was probably for the best that Tyler remained at the bottom of the food chain.... all things considered.

Maybe he'd make a friend. He could use one.

XXX

Zach knew that Alex must've wanted to be dead. Wanted his life to be over and done with. But the problem was, Zach really, really couldn't go on with that.

The truth was, Zach desperately wanted his friend alive. No matter what the cost of being alive would have on Alex's psyche. He was selfish like that. He wanted him alive and breathing and not dead and buried in some graveyard with Hannah or Zach's dad.

And yet, he couldn't find it in him to face his friend until Alex was all patched up and would definitely live.

Much of what Alex had decided to show his friends had been a show, a facade of how he wanted to be seen by them. None of them had truly ever seen the horror lurking behind the surface. They had all ignored his troubles. They had all seen how bad he was.

They had seen how he had picked fights he knew he would never have a chance at winning over almost nothing, they had seen the mental breaks and the bags under his eyes. Yet, none of them had done anything. They had watched him suffer and waste away like a rose out in the searing heat of a desert.

Alex had been gorgeous and kind and Zach missed him and wished he would have been there when his friend had needed him the most. But Alex was right. He had been too selfish with everything going on with Hannah to do the right thing.

He had been too desperate for mother's approval while knowing all the same that he would never get it if what he had done got out there. The same thing held true for each and every person on that tape but at least Zach had understood that and was ready to own it eventually. Everyone was just desperate to keep something under wraps to make someone happy.

He could help Alex. He could make up for the things he did to Hannah. For breaking her heart. And he'd own it too. Maybe in trial, but he would. And wouldn't break Alex, not the way he did Hannah.

He wouldn't break his heart.


End file.
